


come alive in slow motion (disembodied remix)

by strangetowns



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Happy Ending, M/M, Sheith Remix 2019, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-23 02:13:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19141513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangetowns/pseuds/strangetowns
Summary: God. This was profoundly unfair. Shiro had banned that word from his vocabulary the first week he’d spent trapped in the void, totally useless to him as it was. But for exactly one moment he let himself feel it now, every burning facet of it. He let it envelope him as fully as he could.Then he steeled himself, and turned around to face what he knew he would find.Sure enough; the relentless darkness of death stood in the void alongside him.This was not the first time they’d met.-Shiro faces Death. Today, though, it has not come for him.





	come alive in slow motion (disembodied remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [made a tear in time with love like lions](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16015784) by [springofviolets](https://archiveofourown.org/users/springofviolets/pseuds/springofviolets). 



> This was written for the Sheith Remix Challenge 2019. Thank you to [springofviolets](https://archiveofourown.org/users/springofviolets/pseuds/springofviolets) for putting together such a fun and creative event! Who coincidentally I also drew to remix skdjnfsndk but this is basically a role reversal of their excellent fic [made a tear in time with love like lions](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16015784) \- check it out if you haven't already!
> 
> Much thanks, as always, to [Lyds](http://boxesfullofthoughts.tumblr.com/) and [Arin](http://arindwell.tumblr.com/) for the beta reading AKA hand holding. Title is from "[Feel Like Falling](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GFDE-vdg98)" by Digital Daggers.

Shiro liked to think he was almost used to not having a body at this point. He didn’t know how long he’d been stuck in the gaping void inside the Black Lion; at some point counting the hours away had become too overwhelming to keep up with. Still, from the glimpses of the outside world he could see through the Black Lion’s eyes, carefully tracking the changes in the environment, the progress of the war, the people, he knew it’d been some months at least. Ample time to familiarize himself with the full breadth of what it meant to be incorporeal.

But it was a special kind of injustice to feel nothing when he watched Keith and the man who wasn’t him fall through time and space. His heartbeat didn’t race; dread didn’t swoop in his gut. He didn’t scream, didn’t even whisper. He didn’t have a voice with which to shape words, not like that, not anymore.

He should have been used to that, too. To the experience of fear without the bodily sensations that usually accompanied it - strange, disembodied, formless. He wasn’t.

 _Can we save him?_ The words should have come out of him with an edge of urgency, perhaps even desperation. They didn’t.

 _We can try_.

The Black Lion swooped through the air, majestic and powerful and gloriously, breathtakingly fast. He almost wished he could pretend to feel her passage through the air, the flexing of her joints, the fire burning in her engines. He almost wished he could pretend to feel connected to _something_.

As she arched up toward Keith’s falling figure, his hand clasped around the wrist of the man who wasn’t him, Shiro couldn’t forget what he would have felt to make this happen for himself, the thrill of a dangerous maneuver tingling in the pit of his gut and adrenaline pounding against his temples as the Black Lion dodged rubble and cradled Keith and the man who wasn’t him in her jaw. _Breathe_. The word materialized itself in his mind, though it was one he hadn’t had use for in a long while.

Then again, maybe it was worth remembering to stay calm in a crisis. Keith would live. Shiro didn’t question it, because he’d never had to.

The Black Lion was as gentle as she could be, but as her mouth closed around the two bodies Keith tumbled to the ground gracelessly in an inelegant heap. He didn’t move, didn’t so much as twitch. And Shiro couldn’t check for a pulse or bend his ear to his mouth to hear for a flutter of a breath. He couldn’t touch him. He should be used to that. And he was.

He was used to the ache of wanting beyond rational hope, too. He’d been used to it for a very long time.

 _How is he?_ If Shiro had the breath to hold, he would.

 _I cannot tell_. The Black Lion sounded uncharacteristically consternated. _He has not opened his eyes._

And so he hadn’t. The man who wasn’t Shiro hadn’t, either.

God. This was profoundly unfair. Shiro had banned that word from his vocabulary the first week he’d spent trapped in the void, totally useless to him as it was. But for exactly one moment he let himself feel it now, every burning facet of it. He let it envelope him as fully as he could.

Then he steeled himself, and turned around to face what he knew he would find.

Sure enough; the relentless darkness of death stood in the void alongside him.

This was not the first time they’d met.

 _You’re here for him._ There was no sense wasting time with greetings and questions he already knew the answer to.

_Yes._

It wasn’t a surprise. Shiro knew that. Still, if he had a heart, it would have frozen over, just then.

 _You can’t. I won’t let you._ The words came out of him unexpectedly, unbidden. Pointless. Utterly pointless. How did you fight Death itself? How could you possibly stand against it? Yet there was nothing else he could say. He was incapable of it. When it came to Keith - there was no other answer.

 _What can you hope to do against me?_ Shiro hoped beyond rationality - not smart, considering the circumstances, but sometimes these things couldn’t be helped, not even for someone with his level of self-control - that the voice would sound annoyed, perhaps even angry. Of course it didn’t. There was only a cool sort of detachment.

_I’ve been fighting you off for over half my life. I’d gladly do it again._

And he had. And he would.

 _You are wasting your time._ A hint of exasperation now? It seemed too good to be true. _I come for everyone, when the time comes. One day, I will come for you, truly come for you, and you will learn what it really means to fight against me. Today, though, I come for him, and only for him._

 _He’s barely had any time._ Maybe it was a good thing, for once, to not have a body, to not have to feel fear and anxiety clawing up his throat and choking down his words. Maybe right now what he needed was to feel steady and calm and centered within himself.

_He has had time._

This was such a blatant lie Shiro felt the ghost of anger licking at the back of his brain. _What the hell do you know about_ time _?_

_He has had years. Decades. Whole lifetimes. He has had them with you._

Now, too, Shiro was glad not to have a body, for if he had one surely this would have brought him to his knees. _What?_

_Do you admit now that your mortal conscience cannot understand time like I do?_

_Show me, then. Make me understand._

It was such an obvious attempt at stalling, such a reckless thing to try when he had no plan, no objective other than _save Keith, save Keith, save him._ But he could admit to himself he’d fully abandoned rationality already, long ago, the very moment he saw Keith fall.

Sometimes you couldn’t afford to keep it.

 _You tire me, human_. Shiro almost dared to think that Death sounded wry in this moment, if it were possible for Death to sound like anything at all. _But a few more moments, then. And then you shall see._

So Shiro closed his eyes.

And he saw.

-

Two men at the helm of a great starship, sleek and thrumming with life on the inside, hands joined together as they faced the planets of the unknown.

-

Two women standing by a window, a cactus on the sill and the early morning light warm against the room’s walls as the taller woman bent her head to catch the other’s lips with her own.

-

A version of Shiro decades in the future, aging, grizzled, death and lost love written into his eyes; and across the hall, a version of Keith with long, tangled hair who had lived half his life across the universe, and who now closed the distance between them and threw his arms around Shiro and felt, for the first time in decades, at home.

-

Kids, sweet kids who grew up next door, who hid under blanket forts and snuck chaste kisses in the dark.

-

A small girl sitting on Shiro’s shoulders and a sullen teenager standing a few paces behind Keith and their faces leaned in together, laughing, reconnected for the first time since their college years, when they’d shared a tiny room and stayed up until four in the morning talking about nothing.

-

Warriors on an ancient battlefield, Shiro’s armor shining dully in the morning light; and under the stars they gave themselves to one another, and when Keith fell in battle in Shiro’s armor Shiro wept bitterly, and stripped the bronze breastplate from his chest and held it close to his own heart, and when he was finished grieving he went back to war.

-

Guns on their shoulders, clean crisp suits at the edges; a ruthless partnership that left an endless trail of deaths behind them, and they were the only people in the world who knew what ghosts lived behind the other’s eyelids.

-

A crown on Shiro’s head, and a gleaming sword at Keith’s hip; and stolen conversations before state dinners, and long nights spent behind closed doors.

-

Gleaming golden rings around their fingers; flowers in the air; sweetness upon Keith’s lips.

-

Keith standing alone in the astral plane, facing death with a straight back and clenched fists at his side; and he raised his chin, and he said, “I’ll trade you.”

-

Shiro opened his eyes.

His head could have burst right open.

 _Was that_ \- if he had a body, if he had lungs, he would have had to catch his own breath. _Was that real?_

 _Human understanding of reality is too simple for you to grasp the true answer to that question._ Now, Death almost sounded bored. _But the universes exist._

Together. Every single lifetime that flashed before Shiro’s eyes, and that was the common thread that twined around all of them. No matter the happiness, no matter the tragedy, they were together the whole time.

And now that he had seen all the universes in which “together” was a fact rather than a dream, not having it in this one seemed an injustice all the greater.

If he had a body his very ribs would have ached.

_Are you going to take him now?_

The question hurt his brain.

_Will you let me?_

Shiro stared at Death, right where it should have had eyes.

_I think you know the answer to that._

_Well?_ He never realized that word could sound so dispassionate.

The universes echoed in Shiro’s head. So did Keith’s voice.

_I’ll trade you._

It seemed like the most natural thing to say in the world.

_Your lifespan is not long enough to be worth his._

No. Shiro hadn’t expected it to be.

He steeled himself, and let his thoughts ring clear over the astral plane.

_My connection to the Black Lion for his life._

Because learning how to pilot her had given him a chance at a second life. In that sense, he could think of nothing else that could do the same for Keith.

There was a long, heartstopping pause. Death didn’t move. Neither did Shiro.

And, finally -

 _Very well._ Death’s voice began to fade. _Until we meet again, human._

He turned to the Black Lion. Her face was expressionless, as it always was. But he could feel her sadness, her deep grief rolling off of her in waves. It was the same grief that had lived inside of him all this time.

 _Thank you_ , he told her. _For everything._

_You have nothing to thank me for._

It was the most honest thing he’d ever heard - the most honest thing he’d ever felt. The words echoed inside of him. Filled him up with a gentle sort of comfort. With peace.

He closed his eyes.

And the world around Shiro began to fade, too.

-

Darkness that was whole, and complete.

It drowned him.

-

And then - light.

It was very nearly blinding.

-

Shiro opened his eyes.

He had a body, was the first thing he noticed. He had hands; he had feet. He had a pulse that thrummed through his veins. He had bones weighed down with the greatest exhaustion he had ever felt. He was real.

And Keith’s face above his, more fierce and more tender in real life than Shiro’s wildest imagination could have ever conjured up.

He was alive. He was alive. He was _alive_.

“Keith,” Shiro said. It was the only word he held inside himself in this moment, the only word he could remember. It came out of him like a prayer.

Keith put his hands on Shiro’s shoulders, and smiled.

God, how he’d missed that smile.

“It was Allura,” Keith told him. “Allura pulled you from the Black Lion. And put you here.” Keith grazed Shiro’s temples with the tips of his fingers. This body - suddenly, he recognized it. Something wordless swelled up in his throat.

“How’d you know I was in there?” he whispered. His voice was rough from disuse; it was all the volume he was capable of.

“I saw you,” Keith said.

He let out a shaky exhale, and leaned their foreheads together. The desperation that rolled off of him like a tidal wave, the relief, the awe. Shiro felt every ounce of it pouring into the vessel of his heart.

“You saved me,” Keith said. His eyes were closer to Shiro’s than they’d ever been. They were warm. A steady fire. And inside the flames Shiro knew Keith understood the truth of those words.

Shiro closed his eyes. He thought of infinite universes, and endless lifetimes, and the feeling of together; somehow when all else was subject to the whims of the cosmos, this was the one thing he could count on.

Against the backs of his eyelids, all he could see was a boy facing death down with his heart in his hands and armed only with a promise. Keith could never know how much that image touched Shiro. He would never know.

“We saved each other,” Shiro said.

He opened his eyes. Keith looked at him, for a long moment.

And he tilted his face forward, the sparest of motions, and caught Shiro’s mouth with his own.

Shiro couldn’t move, in the face of this - this fire, this feeling, this everything. He could only close his eyes again, the heat of Keith’s mouth so potent he thought it might burn him alive, and take all that Keith wanted to give to him. And god; god, it was so fucking much. It was nearly infinite.

Keith’s thumbs stroked at Shiro’s jawline, and he pulled away, just an inch. Their foreheads were still touching. Their heartbeats were still aligned.

“I know,” Keith said against Shiro’s mouth.

Hell. Maybe he did, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> I had a blast with this one, although unfortunately due to personal life stuff was not able to carry out my original plans to expand some of these into full verses like in the original fic =// just wanted to give some shout-outs to a couple of the things I drew inspiration from for some of the different verses: Dream Daddy [yes i'm 100% serious], The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, the infamous mafia au by lightningstrikes, and of course all of my thanks to my wonderful friend Lyds for letting me borrow some of their ideas.
> 
> Find me on [tumblr](http://canonicallyanxious.tumblr.com) or [twitter](http://twitter.com/canonlyanxious)!


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